Month: August 2020

GOD’S WARCRAFT – ITS OFTEN ILLOGICAL & IRRATIONAL

~ spicedmullings ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I watch a movie that pits a small force against a larger enemy, I always look for the battle strategy by which the smaller army conquers the larger one. It excites me to see a bigger enemy, who comes into battle confident of gaining the upper hand because of the sheer number of people on their side, made to bite the dust by a smaller opponent through their sharper wits and smarter battle plans.

It thrilled me to watch: Prince Caspian’s force emerge from beneath the ground to encircle the enemy in the film of that name; Scottish King Robert Bruce vanquish a larger English force by impaling the enemy cavalry with spears hidden in the muddy terrain in the movie The Outlaw King; the American Robert Martin hoodwink and rescue his men from the English Lord Cornwallis in The Patriot and other such clever strategies in military and combat movies.

Interesting though these warcraft are, nothing can beat God’s battle strategies and plans that help His people win over foes stronger than themselves. The instances portrayed in films can be appreciated, the superb planning involved marvelled at and, even though these appear as unexpected twists in the tale, they can be fully understood. However, when compared to the art of war in the Bible, these pale in contrast to that which is exhibited by the Lord. God’s warfare and strategies are truly out of this world because they are often dependent on irrelevant and irrational actions that are precursors for victory or defeat.

Take, for example, the time Israel fought the Amalekites in the desert after the Red Sea Crossing as reported in Exodus chap 17. Fresh out of Egypt, rescued from bondage through ten miraculous acts of God that brought the then world power to its knees, led by an able warrior, Joshua, Israel had the ability and mental capacity to overcome this attack. Yet their victory and defeat did not rest on such strengths, but were hinged on their leader Moses holding his hands raised in the air or not while watching the battle from a hilltop. It seems such an irrational way of winning a battle, but that was how God worked it out for them!

Why did God make such moves as the battle turning for good or bad depending on whether Moses kept his hands raised or not? The reason is not hard to figure out: Four hundred years of bondage under a violent and harsh nation would have taught them the efficacy and advantage of brute force as well as strength. Israel was chosen to be God’s people, His royal priesthood and the people of His pasture. They had to learn to do everything not by might nor power but by Him.

They had to understand that their dependency on Him would be the reason for their success or failure. They were to cleave to Him and obey Him fully and totally. They had to learn this lesson before they entered the promised land and started live among others who did not follow Yahweh. God was teaching them this lesson and inculcating this into their beings so that when they were among other people groups, they would function as His people. Israel had to learn the secret of their existence – their relationship with Yahweh and their allegiance and obedience to Him!

Consider another time when they had crossed over the river Jordan to the land God promised to them through their ancestor Abraham. The first city they had to conquer was Jericho, one of the strongest cities of their times, a walled and defenced city, strong enough to withstand any invasion. It was a veritable fortress and conquering it would be the key for their conquest of the whole land.

Joshua, their commander is met by the commander of the army of God who then outlines the battle plan to conquer the city they are targeting. He tells Joshua that for 6 days the whole army of Israel should walk silently around the city once each day. On the 7th day they must go around 7 times, 6 times in silence as before, but the 7th time they must shout and charge straight ahead of them at the sound of the trumpet.

Any commander would consider seeking out the weak points in the battlements and using them to attack the city as the logical battle plan. God asks Joshua to do something that looked foolish in the eyes of men. The people of Jericho must have first looked on with incredulity, then with astonishment and finally with ridicule at the spectacle of an army marching in silence around the city they wanted to conquer. Israel had to bear it all and quietly rest in their tents, without reacting to their taunts and mockery.

Nothing is more difficult to bear than ridicule and it is hard to stand by or keep quiet or be without reacting at such times. Israel could not allow itself to be triggered into action or do something to prove they are not sissies. They remained faithful to the strategy given them by God through Joshua and won a great victory. They did not allow their own doubts or misgivings to distract them and they did not allow their own thinking to disrupt their obedience to God’s battle plan.

In the case of the Jericho strategy, it was not Israel who had to learn a lesson, but the nations around them. They had go know that Israel had a supernatural protecting force that would fight on their behalf. Israel was coming into the land as new settlers and the nations around had to be made aware of them being the people of Yahweh, so that the other nations would beware His power and allow Israel to dwell in safety and security. It was an object lesson for the nations around and indeed the Gibeonites came to make peace for this reason and because of the demonstration of God’s power on behalf of Israel!

It would often seem that God is a poor general and indeed this is a comment by Rameses, Pharaoh of Egypt in the movie Ten Commandments when he finds Israel trapped before the Red Sea. Pharaoh thought he had the Israelites under his mercy for he didn’t understand God’s battle plan. The Lord totally destroyed the Egyptian army, burying them in a watery grave under the waters of the Red Sea when they thought they could easily overpower Israel by their military prowess. Egypt that day ended up, not only losing its firstborns, but also its army, one that was feared for its invincibility during that period of world history. Moses’ song at that time declares His might: The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. Your right hand, the Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, the Lord, shattered the enemy (Exo 15:3‭-‬6).

To answer the question why God allowed this confrontation and made Israel go throw this crisis when they had just escaped 400 years of tyranny and bondage is again answered in Moses song: In your unfailing love, you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength, you will guide them to your holy dwelling. The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of Philistia. The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away; terror and dread will fall on them. By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone – until your people pass by, Lord, until the people you bought pass by. You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance – the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established Exo (15:13‭-‬17). This is what exactly happened!

God never wastes His moves, but is always completely in control of the fight. He is an able General, a Master Strategist and Victorious Veteran of many successful missions. He knows what He is doing or how He is directing, and as His people we need to fully trust Him. The way He directs or plans the fight will be contrary to ours, often incomprehensible and seemingly foolish.

Apostle Paul well puts it in his second letter to the Corinthians and answers the question of why God’s combat operations are different and His plans appear nonsensical. It is because We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. He points out that this so since We are not fighting against human enemies. Instead, we are fighting against the rulers and the powerful spirits that have authority over this dark world. We are fighting against the bad spirits who live in the heavens (Eph 6:12 EASY).

God’s war mode may not fit our thinking process or our working style, but it brings total vanquishing od the enemy. It is ok to not be able to comprehend His strategy, but it is very important to obey it. If you want a complete rout of the enemy, you better hear and obey His strategy, unintelligent though it may seem to you. God knows what He is about and He plans with a far reaching eye about what is to come, who is to be touched, how it should effect and where it should impact. Therefore, it behoves us to follow His instructions implicitly, even when we don’t fathom them. He has more experience and expertise than anyone on earth or heaven. We must trust that God knows what He is about, even if we don’t!

In this pandemic period, let’s take care to follow His leading in our daily fight against negativities and negative situations of life that we are seeing and facing, daily!

*Pics courtesy Shutterstock and Google images

WHAT IS IN YOUR HAND

~ spicedmullings ~ Leave a comment

We are people who need hard evidence to feel safe and secure. We need to see money in the bank, cash in hand, provisions in the home, etc to feel comfort and comfortable. We are living in times and seasons where hard evidence in hand is needed for us to feel protected.

Yet, that’s not how our God works or seeks to assure. He is beyond and above the natural, the physical and the visible. His works are inspite of appearances and evidences, independent of what you see or hear or feel. His works transcend the natural senses and normal answers.

For example, in the Bible we see the prophet Elijah is sent to a widow in Zarephath during a famine. When Elijah encounters the woman picking sticks in order to cook her last meal for herself and her son, before succumbing to death as she is down to her last bit of flour and oil, The prophet tells her to share her meal with him and declares to her “For this is what the Lord , the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’ ”1 Kings 17:14 NIV. We see that indeed that’s what happened She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. 1 Kings 17:15‭-‬16

The way of the Lord is always diammetrically opposite and contrary to the belief system of this world. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts far removed from ours, as far as the heavens are from the earth. That’s the gap between His thinking process and ours, a world of difference!

To live under the economy and provision of God and His Kingdom, you don’t need concrete evidence or hard facts. You just need to have faith, which of course is the real evidence of things invisible and substance of things unseen.

Let’s see more evidence of such working of God in the history of the prophet Elisha, the protege of Elijah. A prophet’s wife whose husband, a faithful man of God, was dead approached Elisha for help to save her sons from the money lenders who had come to take her sons in lieu of her debt. Elisha simply asks her what do you have in the house. When she replies she has a little oil, he asks her to borrow vessels from neighbours and pour out the oil. She obeys him and finds the oil run out only after she has filled all the vessels available. He then tells her to sell the oil and pay the debt. The point is that the prophet took what was available to birth a miracle by God’s power that rested on him.

God doesn’t need evidence of abundance to do a miracle or to supply your needs. He just needs  and uses what is available to meet the need of the hour. He doesn’t see what is not there, but sees what you have in hand and will use that to meet your lack. He never will condemn or chide when something is not there, but will always increase what is available or what you have with you. So don’t focus on what you don’t have, but focus on what you she for that is enough for God to meet your needs.

God is never constrained just by lack but also evidence about it. He is constrained only by a lack of faith and never by lack of resources! Nothing can prevent His power from flowing or His munificence from meeting our needs, except lack of faith! His hand is not shortened nor His arm restricted that He can’t provide care for you, but you can prevent or tie it up by your lack of faith!

Take another example, when hard evidence declares an emergency situation and shows what is in hand is insufficient to meet the current need. Jesus asks His disciples to feed the multitude, about 5000+ people, and all they have is 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. What they have in hand is, in the opinion of His disciples, not enough to feed the people, but Jesus is unfazed by the meagreness of what is in hand. He just lifts what is in hand to God in prayer, blesses it and asks His men to distribute to the multitude. They end up not only feeding all the people, but also gather up 12 basketfuls of leftovers, one for each of his team to carry home to their families. God is not limited by what is at hand nor hampered by what is seen to meet our needs, not frugally or beggarly or miserly,but royally and abundantly!

The economy of His Kingdom, His rule and reign are not based on or dependent on lack of evidence or concreteness of visible facts, but on the capacity and the capability of His power and glory. You cannot draw from His store or His benefits without an exchange or a currency. The currency by which His Kingdom operates and by which you can get His provision is simple and easy. It is faith that is the hard cash that will enable you to live off and from His storehouse.

You don’t need cash in hand, money in the bank, investment in stocks or even a healthy financial portfolio to be cared for by Him or fed by Him. All you need is faith, faith in His ability, faith in His capacity and faith in His propensity to meet your needs. You just need to trust Him and live every day under His patronage through faith. He has promised to take care and He will, inspite of circumstance, lack of visible evidence or even your ability to provide.

He has enough and more in His hand to supply all our needs and the heart to bless His children with good things, day after day.

So don’t be disturbed by what you don’t have or depressed by what the little you do have, but be thankful for what you do have since that is enough for God to use or reuse!

Just trust Him and submit to Him, totally. Throw yourself illy on Him and He will protect, provide and please you with His Providence and beneficial munifence.

Don’t be disturbed by what you see or what you hear or what others say or even by what you know to be true to your sense and commonsense!

Just learn to walk by faith and not by your natural senses!

Don’t be limited by what you have in hand.

Be thrilled by the blessing of unlimited supply by a limitless God!

Saturate yourself, not with daily news reports or news analysis, but soak yourself totally in His Word for we need it to live in these times.

Do not live by what is evident, but live by His Word, daily!

Feed on it and live by it daily and you will see evidence of His care, concern and compensation, every day, day after day!

*Pics courtesy unsplash.com, shutteestock.com and google images

GOD’S WAY OF PROVISION DEFIES REASON & LOGIC!

~ spicedmullings ~ 1 Comment

Mathematics is called the queen of sciences because of its precise and accurate nature. It is something that stays true in every place at every time and for every person. One plus one equals two holds good whether you are in Africa or Antarctica, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are erudite or ignorant, whether you are western or eastern and whether you are GenX, GenY or GenZ!

However, in the Bible we often see that when it comes to how God provides or supplies the needs of His people, mathematics and numeracy do not seem to work or fail. Constantly, His way confounds and baffles human comprehension. Consistently, His work defies and denies calculations and computations.

The God of the Bible seems to take complete pleasure in surmounting logic, vanquishing reasoning and breaking through all the precision of mathematics!

Take, for example, the case of the prophet Elijah at the time he declares a famine in the land for a space of three years. God directs him to a place of seclusion and hiding by the River Jordan, telling him that He would send ravens to feed him while the river would provide drinking water. The Bible says in I Kings 17:6 that The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

Now ravens or crows (same family) by nature considered unclean birds because they feast on carrion and other rubbish. When Noah sent a dove and a raven as the first to find out if the waters had receded, the dove returned as it did not find a place to rest. The raven did not return because it found sustenance and sustainability in the aftermath of the flood. Knowing this, causes a question to rise: Couldn’t God find other birds or other means by which He could supply His prophet?

Obviously, the raven must have pilfered it from a rich person’s table for only they would have food during a dearth. To use such a bird as a means of provision seems quite illogical and irrational, to say the least! We do not know why God used a raven, but He does and Elijah  doesn’t turn up his nose up at God’s way of provision. He simply receives his provision and uses it, even if he may have his own inhibitions about it!

After the brook dries up due to extended time of drought and famine, God again, contrary even to His own laws and directions, sends Elijah to Zarephath to be cared for by a widow, in the region of Sidon, traditional enemies of the people of Israel. In fact, Jesus cites this incident when His hometown rejects Him, to drive home the point that a prophet never finds acceptance among his own kith and kin.

Widows were and are part of those marginalized ones whom God instructs His people to take special care of as to their provision and upkeep. It must have been therefore really hard on the prophet to digest or accept this direction of the Lord, probably causing him to wonder at His leading. Elijah doesn’t waste time disputing God’s guidance, but implicitly follows instruction and simply obeys. God will never fit to a box of our making, but will always transcend our preconceived notions of Him!

In another case of defying and breaking natural and empirical laws, Jesus the Son of God feeds 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, garnering 12 basket full of leftovers and 4000 with 7 loaves and few fishes, with 7 baskets of leftovers. The equations that will puzzle mathematicians would be: how can such a multiplication happen and how can these satisfy our understanding of ratio and proportion? These will indeed plague those who live by economics, because here it is not a query of numbers but a question of meeting the needs of those present with what is available at hand by the power of God!

The principle operating here is not one of logic and reason, but one of the dynamics and principles of the Kingdom or rule of God. God knows how to baffle the wisdom of the world and how to delight those who trust and obey Him with His own Kingdom economics and arithmetic. After all, He created them and so, obviously as the Creator, He could overcome or surpass any limits or limitations!

Lets analyze another instance of provision in the Bible by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. When His mother requests His help and intervention regarding a lack of wine at a wedding, He simply asks the servants at the place to fill 6 jars to the brim with water. He then commands them to take it for testing by the steward of the feast. The steward, astonished at the quality of the wine, congratulates the man of the house for starting something new viz., that of reserving and serving the best wine for the last, since no one but the servants knew the origin of that wine. I wonder what were the apprehensions felt by the servants in carting a cup of water for wine tasting! I am happy that they chose to obey the Lord, despite their reservations about their task.

The point is that God knows how to care and provide for His people and is not limited by any lack of sources or resources. He tells Peter to catch a fish to find a coin in its mouth for to pay the taxes. He is never at a loss in finding ways and means by which to help those who do His bidding, even if they are in a place where they must hide from the repercussions of obeying His will. His hand is not shortened that it cannot provide nor His store emptied that it cannot furnish those who trust in Him. The only issue, if at all there is one, is in accepting His modus operandi!

He can make water to come out of nowhere in a desert when three kings were stuck on battleground without water, cause food/manna rain from the sky, meat come on wings wafted by a wind, open a passage in a sea, enable water to flow from a rock or fire to fall from heaven. His provision and His methods of provision are limitless and endless!

This is not just something that happened of old, for even today, we have people reporting of finding money in their purses, healing happening in an unexplained manner, missing persons being found, storms suddenly clearing up, as well as other miracles that do not fit rhyme or reason.

God knows how to meet our need when we need, what ever maybe that need and wherever we may have that need. Whether it would be by reasonable and logical ways or by seemingly irrational and irreprehensible means is His prerogative. We must not be puzzled by it, but just simply expect it!

Why does God delight in such defying and destroying of precise methodologies that He Himself created and built as an integral part of this His created world?

I believe the answer to that lies in I Cor 1:25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Also, v 28 of the same chapter: God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are…

Another answer as to the why of it is that God has to be allowed to be God and not be confined by our assumptions or to our conceptions and notions. God transcends human conjectures and mortal conceptualizations. He has to be so, otherwise He can’t be God, but only a figment of our imagination or a projection of our thoughts.

If we don’t allow God to be God or try to understand Him, we will only falter in faith. If we try to box or confine Him, we will only end up creating images and idols of our choice. If we get angry that He doesn’t fit or fails to live up to our expectations of Him, we will only turn away from Him and end up hurting ourselves in the bargain.

God is unpredictable and incalculable, but not fickle, erratic or volatile. He is the only sure ground and stable foundation in an uncertain, unreliable and oft-changing world. He is the one solid and steady reference point in chancy times. Trust in Him at all times in all seasons and in all locations. You will never be let down or left alone!

What can you do with and about such a God who seems to delight in being incomprehensible and interstellar?

Just enjoy Him and His provision, without resisting Him! Just take pleasure in Him and delight in His ways! Just revel in His works and take complete pleasure in being His child! Just experience the thrill and satisfaction of an adventurous ride through life with Him as your Father! Hold tight to Him and rejoice in obeying Him, totally!

A note of caution here – God can, will and may choose to break rational, reasonable and regular ways of doing things, but He will never break His principles and laws of moral standards or righteousness. He may overcome or function beyond and above the natural laws of maths, physics, chemistry and biology, but never will He work past or sideline His laws of what He has defined as right and wrong. The only predictable thing about God is His nature – holy and compassionate, outstanding in purity and love, totally other in divinity and sanctity!

Let’s not limit God by our mechanical computations or by our estimation figures and number crunching.

Let’s not tie His hands by our assessments and evaluations, but learn to marvel at His wondrous works on our behalf.

In this pandemic period, don’t try to live by economics or mechanics of calculations, for they will all fail. Seek to live by faith and trust in God, looking to Him for necessities of existence rather than luxuries of this age. He Who provides for the sparrows and cares for grass of the field, will surely take care of you and yours, even when all seems lost.

God is not limited by any circumstance or any lack of resources, but will provide or multiply what is at hand. Let’s not limit Him because He doesn’t fit into the box we have made for Him, but release Him to be the Lord of all.

Lets not be limited by our understanding or hampered by our limiting ways of thinking.

Lets just allow God to be God and simply accept His provision, not being concerned however He chooses to provide, accepting with humility His ways of working!

Just accept His provision, however it comes, with joy and wonder!